This Life

Hello World,

A little over ten years ago (about two fortnights more, to be precise), I wrote a post entitled 'Pseudo-Psychology for the romantically insane'. Fitting I suppose, that I was then (nearly) 'one-and-twenty' 😛

I don't precisely remember the proximate cause for the writing of that post, but I see from the comments that there had been some 'grilling' the day before I set fingers to keys 😂  In any case, I thought that one-and-thirty (or thereabouts 😛) is a good time to reassess and iterate 😛 - Not just on the ideas, but also on why they were important to me back then and whether that has changed. 

Just a teeny-tiny caveat: Everything that I write below is simply my opinion, and I find it extremely inefficient to write 'in my opinion' after every few sentences (though I'll have a CONSTANT urge to write it because if there's one thing I hate, it's feeling misunderstood) so I'll thought I'd just do it once here. I'm still going to slip in some more (can't help it), so bear with me on that one.

So, yeah - without any further ado - lemme dive in 😛

Back then I saw the post as being about 'Love and Relationships' and 'Society is so screwed up' (SOO one-and-twenty, right?!), but today - it's bigger than that. I think it always has been; probably just took time for it to sink in. 

I think it's about all of life. 

To my mind, our lives are simply an interplay between Identity and Connection. We are born without a sense of identity, but with connections - our family, and specifically, our parents. And whether it's nature or nurture, free-will or destiny, these first connections and our early childhood create a foundation for how we understand identity - both ours, and that of others. And the variance could be massive, right? Because for each facet of our parents' identities (and the interplay between them, which is really, kind of a third person - the personification of the marriage) we can choose from a spectrum that goes from complete acceptance to complete rejection. And it's not that parents don't change themselves 😌 - it's just hard because at that stage they feel a responsibility for their child's identity (which is where paternalism comes from - and we'll get back to that one in a bit 😉)

As we grow up and meet other people; friends, teachers, colleagues, etc; these interactions and connections all have the possibility of transforming the identities of all involved parties (depending of course on their process of self-discovery and interaction). We assess and iterate (sometimes while showering, sometimes while trekking, sometimes while high 😛) and our identity evolves over time (more or less, depending on the specific person and their process).

    The problem here is that since connection is introduced to us before identity, our mind forms an inextricable link between two, which we have to then deal with for the rest of our lives 😐 And the fact is (in my opinion😛) that while people and connections are VERY VERY VERY important, and they CAN and DO define your identity, we must know who we are, even in the absence of an external observer. As Polonius said in Hamlet 😀 - 

    "This above all - to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man" (though that 'man' should have been 'person' 😅)

So yeah - that one's step one in my opinion 😁- Actively integrating self discovery (through introspection, observation, content consumption, and discussion) in our lives. I'm sure there are as many approaches and models for this as there are people on this planet, and I will not even try to get into that here, (but definitely plan on trying to understand this through discussions with people 🙏) so I'll stop and segue into the next problem(?) - agency and connection.

In my opinion, two things we must keep in mind while dealing with others is that they have identities JUST as complex as ours (remember sonder? 😁) and the agency to actualize that identity; and the absence of either can be supremely problematic:

a. Assuming others don't have complex identities is treating them like NPCs (non-playing characters in video games, that basically have a set of canned responses/behaviours which they keep looping) - which immediately robs them of dignity and respect 

b. Assuming others don't have agency makes us guilty of paternalism; viz: 'I know what's good for you better than yourself' - which takes the form of sexism, casteism, colonialism, (and just to shed the anthropocentric lens here - speciesism!!) and a whole host of other problematic ideas. 

Simple (as an idea), but operationally very very complex (impossible to achieve, really) 😅 - Only thing to do, as Mad-Eye Moody used to say - 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE'

We will ALWAYS get it wrong 😓 - but as Ta-Nahesi Coates writes in 'Between the World and Me':

"I have asked this question all my life. I have sought the answer through my reading and writings, through the music of my youth, through arguments with your grandfather, with your mother. I have searched for answers in nationalist myth, in classrooms, out on the streets, and on other continents. The question is unanswerable, which is not to say futile"

If existence is a question, then all our lives, collectively, are the answer. 

And what a beautiful answer it is!!

Oh, yeah - what is Love? (Baby don't hurt me 😂) -- but really, to my mind, it's a connection that's so strong that causes a melding of identities - and I definitely think that many many people experience it, even if for a brief moment. Comprehensive love, that is, a state of continuous identity-melding; yeah - that one's rare 😛

And I think this one still applies: "Be brave,Be genuine, Be open; because if i know one thing for sure, it's this: If true love exists, like in the stories and movies, it's worth all the ridicule in the world....... "

P.S. Try Ray Dalio's Principles assessment - I found it to be quite interesting - [Shout out to @Siddharth Kulkarni for this one]

P.P.S. Actually, I should thank a TONNNE of people, but I'm sure I'll miss someone  🙈 - so I'll just thank everyone who's been a part of my life

P.P.P.S. I'll also have an urge to arrange them alphabetically, so as to be perfectly fair 😂 - and that's going to be a pain-and-a-half

P.P.P.S. I'm going to check if Houseman has any views on one-and-forty - I'd like to get ahead of the curve 😛

P.P.P.P.S: Some content that helped me with this one: Shake the Dust by Anis Mogjani, and This Life, by Vampire Weekend